Chapter 4: Pursuit
"Sara," Jean said absently as she sorted through the huge stack of mail and handed Sara six envelopes. Sara took them hastily as Jean handed Warren, Storm, and Rogue envelopes. "The rest are for Charles."
Sara sat at her desk and opened the first one. It was a letter from Mark, and from the sound of it he was having problems with the Shanghai branch. One of the newly-hired high-level managers had been caught embezzling funds, and the Shanghai authorities wanted her to come down and take care of it. She sighed and set that one aside. She'd talk to Mark via telephone later. She'd only been home a month, and she really didn't want to run out there again so soon.
The next one was the bill for her business credit card. She checked, and found her ticket home was on this bill. Good. She wrote one of her business checks out for the amount, sealed the envelope, and stamped it, setting it aside. She had to go into town later for more stamps; she'd drop her outgoing stuff there while she was there.
The rest were bills and business correspondence. She finally reached the last envelope, which had only her name and the mansion's address on it. She turned it over and over in her hands for a moment, looking for any other marking on it, and when she found none she opened it. Inside was a plain sheet of white paper, with letters cut out of a newspaper pasted to it. It read, waTch youR Back. The ShadOwMan is coMing foR You. It was unsigned.
"Logan!" she called as she saw her lover walk past their bedroom door. "Look at this." She shoved the letter at him.
He read it, a frown creasing his forehead as he did so. "What's it mean?" he asked her.
"I don't know," she frowned too. "I don't know anything about a Shadowman. I've never heard of him."
"Let's ask Chuck," he said.
Xavier frowned. "I haven't heard of this Shadowman either," he said. "But it's clearly a warning. Someone wants you to be careful. Sara, I would ask, until we know what this means and who this Shadowman is, that you not go out unless you're with someone. At least two of the others, or Logan."
Sara nodded.
He opened the door to the post office and she smiled at him as she walked in. He stood there, ostensibly looking at the stamps but in reality keeping an eye out for anything unusual. He caught a movement out the corner of his eye, and growled, low and inaudibly, when he saw the two people in line behind her. One was a man in a nice-looking but not terribly expensive suit, holding a fluffy blue baby blanket. The other was a woman holding a yellow teddy bear. To anyone else, they were a couple sending a baby gift to someone who had just had a boy. To Logan, they were something else, as he caught the flash of something silver between the folds of the fluffy blue blanket. The woman took a step, and pretended to twist her heel. As she did so, she knocked up against her escort, who in turn brushed up against Sara. The silver object brushed Sara's arm.
She turned to the man, annoyed, and he said, "I'm sorry, Ma'am." And then he caught her as she collapsed. Logan began to push his way through the crowd as he lowered her to the floor, telling everyone he was a doctor. Seconds later, an ambulance pulled up outside the post office, lights flashing.
Wolverine tossed people aside like bowling pins. He was damned if he was going to let anyone other than himself take Sara. He reached her, finally, and scooped her into his arms, turning and running for the exit. Outside, he came face to face with two burly men dressed in paramedics' uniforms. Logan knew they weren't. Paramedics didn't carry guns. He growled, low in his throat, at war with himself. He wanted to stay and fight, shred the men he was sure were agents of this mysterious Shadowman, but he had to get Sara to safety first. Her safety won out, and he ran for his pickup, dumping her on the front seat and getting into the driver's seat, then peeled out of the parking lot with a squeal of tires.
The ambulance pursued him as he sped down the road back to the mansion. If he could get there he'd be all right, but they were gaining on him. He made a desperate decision and took the turn down Hell's Road.
The sound of shattering glass was accompanied by a familiar sting in his arm. He looked down and saw his arm bleeding sluggishly from a bullet hole in his bicep, but he didn't feel the pain for the adrenaline pumping through his body. He shot over the hill doing sixty and heeled the wheel over hard just before the turn.
The truck got around the turn with a great deal of protesting. Behind him, he heard a scream of overstressed metal, and he turned to look over his shoulder as the ambulance wiped itself out on the same tree Sara had crashed into a couple of years earlier. He sped up, turned off the road, and got back to the mansion without further incident.
Hank peeled back her eyelids, shone a light in her eyes, and pronounced, "She's just asleep. Drugged. I could get her the antidote but I think maybe she should just sleep it off." He was removing the bullet from Logan's arm when Xavier came speeding in with Storm and Betsy behind him. "Where is she? Is she all right?" he asked Hank.
Beast nodded. "She's fine, she just needs to sleep off the drug. They gave her a fairly powerful narcotic."
Logan growled. "They used some weird kinda metal thing ta give her the drugs. I ain't never seen the like before."
"Let me see, Logan." Xavier probed Logan's mind for just a moment, pulling the image of the little silver object up for him to see. He released Logan's mind, looking grim and puzzled.
"I've seen that before. Lilandra's medical staff uses those to deliver medicines to their patients. What is Shi'ar medical equipment doing in the hands of those kidnappers?"
"Kidnappers?" Hank queried.
"If they wanted her dead they would have killed her right there. No, whoever wants her wants her alive. I must send a message to Lilandra," he said flatly to Hank. Xavier turned grimly to Logan. "Whoever this Shadowman is, he wants Sara alive. If he wanted her dead she would be so. I know better than to order her to stay in the mansion, but I can tell her not to go out for anything less than an emergency. Should she have to go somewhere, please be sure she is escorted. Sara must not go out alone." Logan nodded as he left.
Hank told Logan to lie down, but he had other ideas. 'Hank," he said, pulling on his shirt, "I'm gonna go find out what the deal is with this Shadowman character. I ain't gonna let him have Sara."
Much later, he sat at the bar, nursing his drink while he listened to the small talk around him. Four bars, now, and he hadn't heard anything useful. He watched the TV behind the bartender's head. More anti-mutant stuff. He returned his attention to the drink before him.
His ears pricked as he heard a man speak behind him. "Y'ax me, dis Shadowman be doin' us all a favor," the drunk spluttered. "gettin' ridda all dis filthy mutant scum roun' 'ere. 'F I knew summun who was one I be goin' an' turnin' the mutie in too. An' fer fifty thousan' bucks, too!"
Logan stared into his glass. So that was the game. Someone with a grudge against mutants was paying a bounty for any who were turned in. Anger clouded his vision, and he gripped his glass tightly. When the fog cleared, he saw that his fist had closed around his glass and broken it, spraying cheap beer and glass all over the table. He got up abruptly, and went out.
He approached the place where he'd left his bike, and stopped, his senses tingling. He sneaked stealthily around the abandoned telephone pole and brought his two outer claws around to pin to the pole the man he had smelled hiding there. "Tell me real quick whatcha doin' here 'for I shred ya," he snarled at the man who was frozen against the pole.
"I-I-I came to give you a warning," Tony Sciantorelli raised his arms slowly, trying not to make any sudden moves. "Your girlfriend, the Senator's ex-wife? She's been brought to the Shadowman's attention. Get her out of the country, man, get her out before he finds her. He does terrible things to mutants."
"An' how'd ya know 'bout this?" Logan's claws didn't move.
"Look, I can't say, okay? But trust me on this. My sources are the best, and she's in awful danger. If you love her, get her out of the country."
Logan pondered that for a moment, then withdrew his claws. "If I find ya in the middle o' any o' this later, yer not getting' off so easy," he growled, then sprang on his bike and drove away.
Xavier looked even more concerned as he listened to Logan's report. "I believe we will take this man's advice," he said to Sara. She looked about to protest, but subsided as she thought it through. "Sara, your passport is still valid, isn't it?" she nodded. "Then I believe you should take that trip back to Shanghai that Mr. Harmon has been asking you to do. It will leave us free to take down this threat to you before you return." Sara nodded. Xavier turned to Logan. "Did your informant give you any idea who has informed the Shadowman about Sara?"
"Richard." Sara said.
They looked at her.
"Who else?" she made a face. "Who else hates me enough to do that? Richard, of course. I'll leave this up to you to handle; I got stuff in Shanghai to take care of." She sighed. "I just hope it doesn't take six months like it did the last time." She got up. "I leave the details to you. I'm going to bed. Good night, Charles. See you in a little bit, dearling." She kissed Logan as she left.
Lilandra looked grim as Charles told her what had happened. "Charles, I am sorry," she said apologetically, "I had been meaning to call you, as you so charmingly put it, but I have been wrapped up in affairs of state for quite some time and had not gotten around to it. I should have told you."
"Told me what?" he asked her.
"Some few of our months back I was forced to exile one of our scientists who did some unconscionable experiments upon living volunteers. Koven was certain of his ability to physically change some of our people to create the perfect supreme commander for the armies of the Empire, and to that end he used a metallic element that we called metarium. It has quite similar properties to your Earth adamantium, with the added bonus that it is flexible but impenetrable at the same time. I bear some of the guilt for the deaths of his volunteers in that I allowed him to use the metalloid for his experiment. My geologists and metallurgists told me it was chancy stuff, and that it was too difficult to work with due to the extreme temperatures at which the metal must be kept. Once it has cooled it cannot be manipulated further."
"So what should you have told me?"
"Koven had only one success. A member of one of our subject races had the pecuiliar ability to heal himself when injured. Charles, it is common knowledge in the Empire that your X-Men posess such talents, and one in particular, your Wolverine, had the same ability. When Koven was exiled, he left with his research notes and his equipment intact, due to the treachery of one of my council members who supported his cause." She paused, her regal face looking rather grim, and continued, "It was a foregone conclusion that he would find some way of getting into your particular area of space, and continuing his experiments there. I had meant to inform you; perhaps your X-Men might have heard of him and could lead my Imperial guard to him. There will be no second chances for him, Charles, if my Guard find he has murdered anyone from your planet. He will be executed there."
"Am I to understand that the Imperial Guard is on its way here?"
"As we speak," she said, smiling slightly, "I am on the way, with my Guard in tow. It requires the word of the Majestrix to have him executed. I will not chance his escape; he will be executed as soon as possible. He will be stopped there, Charles. I am bringing with me some vidfeeds of the things he has done to his subjects, that you may see why I will have him killed. I know how you feel about such things." She smiled for the first time. "I shall see you, then, in about three of your days."
Xavier forced his heart not to jump out of his chest at the thought of seeing his beloved so soon. "I look forward to seeing you here shortly, then, Lilandra," he said with far more calm than he was feeling. The connection was severed shortly thereafter, and he went to bed feeling a bit more cheerful about the situation.
Sara frowned in disappointment. "I won't be able to meet her?" she pouted. Logan resisted the urge to kiss that pouting lip; if he did she would miss her flight.
"Chuck says ya can meet 'er when ya get back," he said, "We'll get in touch with ya when we got the Shadowman. In the meantime, enjoy yerself in Shanghai." And now he did kiss her as they were bending over the trunk of her Chevelle getting her worn suitcases from it. The kiss went on longer than he expected, and it was with great reluctance that they parted and he walked her into JFK's preflight terminal. If he hadn't been so focused on her he would have noticed the two utterly inconspicuous men walking behind them and carrying briefcases that seemed too light for businessmen. But he was so certain that she would be safe he didn't think to watch around them, then around her, as she checked her bags and boarded the plane. Sara herself didn't think anything of the first businessman when he sat in the seat beside her, talking on the phone, and unwrapped a piece of gum, popping into her mouth to clear her ears as the plane took off.
The businessman was cordial to her on the plane, and chatted to her quite happily about his wife and children, then when he said he owned stock in her company she began to talk to him about that. She was still chatting about that when the flight attendant brought their dinner, and was so relaxed that she never even noticed the tiny amount of powder he added to her soda. Soon after dinner she began to feel drowsy, and went to sleep, unaware of the narrow-eyed, triumphant look he was giving her back.
When the plane touched down in the airport in Shanghai, the flight attendant became concerned when she didn't wake, but was reassured when Sara's 'husband' informed her he would care for her. So she saw nothing unusual when he escorted her off the plane and into a waiting car, and really thought nothing more of it until the baggage people informed the flight captain that her luggage had not been claimed.
